Abu Zubaydah, 45, made his first appearance Tuesday on video from Guantanamo in a hearing before a Periodic Review Board, 14 years after the last day of a month-long interrogation at a CIA black site in Thailand. It was the first time the “enhanced interrogation techniques” approved by the Bush administration were used on a detainee.
Back then, Abu Zubaydah still had his left eye.
Representatives from the media, nongovernmental organizations, and academia were permitted to view the unclassified opening portion of the hearing from a conference room at the Pentagon, but the segment does not include any statement or comments from the detainee. It was the first glimpse outside observers got of Zubaydah since a photo of his face with an eye patch was published by Wikileaks in 2011; at one point he was touted as al Qaeda No. 3.
What observers saw Tuesday was a well-groomed, youthful 45-year-old dressed in white and wearing a black eye patch around his neck; he switched between two pairs of eyeglasses to follow documents being read out loud by a translator. He was accompanied by two military “personal representatives” who spoke on his behalf, but he did not have a private attorney.
Abu Zubaydah
Photo: Department of Defense/MCT via Getty Images
Most notably perhaps, he was waterboarded 83 times.
“He spent a total of 266 hours (11 days, 2 hours) in the large (coffin size) confinement box and 29 hours in a small confinement box, which had a width of 21 inches, a depth of 2.5 feet, and a height of 2.5 feet,” according to the Senate torture report. “The CIA interrogators told Abu Zubaydah that the only way he would leave the facility was in the coffin-shaped confinement box.”
The Tuesday review board hearing was first opportunity to make a case for his release. “Although he initially believed that he did not have any chance or hope to be released, because of the reputation that has been created through the use of his name, he has been willing to participate in the Periodic Review Process,” his military representative stated, “and he has come to believe that he might have a chance to leave Guantanamo through this process.”
The government opposes Abu Zubaydah’s release, and an unnamed official reading his detainee profile at the review alleged his participation in or knowledge of the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the USS Cole bombing in 2000, and involvement in Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s plans to attack US and coalition forces after 9/11, among other plots.
Yet the official also stated he “has shown a high level of cooperation with the staff at Guantanamo Bay and has served as a cell block leader, assuming responsibility for communicating detainees’ messages and grievances to the staff and maintaining order among the detainees.”
That same cooperation is now being used to justify his continued detention. Abu Zubaydah, who has completed university coursework in computer programming, could be a threat because has used his time in Guantanamo to “hone his organizational skills, assess U.S. custodial and debriefing practices,” the official said, and that experience “would help him should he choose to reengage in terrorist activity.”
Abu Zubaydah’s chances of being approved for release are not good, and the future of the Guantanamo detainees who are designated for indefinite detention without trials is unclear.
Of the 61 detainees now held at Guantanamo, 20 are currently approved for repatriation or transfer to a third country. Seven men are in pre-trial proceedings and three have been sentenced. The review board has decided 18 require continued detention to protect against a continuing significant threat to the U.S. security. An additional 13 are awaiting review board decisions or an upcoming hearing.
Zubaydah was snatched from FBI and tortured into SILENCE because he fingered Saudi royals and Pakistani generals for funding Al Qaeda. The CIA covers up US “allies” complicity and sponsorship of terrorist networks. That’s how a fraudulent proxy war works.
https://politicalfilm.wordpress.com/2016/04/12/exclusive-ex-cia-officer-john-kiriakou-stands-up-for-911-truth/
read this ‘Why did Bush-Cheney and the CIA Destroy the Minds of 9/11 Detainees? Others Disappeared or Dead.’
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×5690068
its chilling
We are a nation of war criminals.
Basically his detention is Soviet Gulag style. So much for the shining light on the hill. That is nothing but malarkey and has been for 50 years. What bothers me most is that with such anti human and legal rights being so prevalent in the American judicial system, the Washington political elites still have the gall to crow about how they are a light to lesser nations and how their systems are best and to do as we say not as we do! In other words they are disgusting gross hypocrites!
Any government that will torture ……. will ENSLAVE.
They broke him. They own him. They cannot ever let him speak in any open court. Hence the kangaroo proceedings.
For those with strong stomachs, there is a passage from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report Study of the Central Intelligence Agency ‘s Detention and Interrogation Program, showing Mitchell and Jessen hard at work paid for by US tax dollars.
—
… describe Abu Zubaydah as “compliant,” informing CIA Headquarters that when the interrogator “raised his eyebrow, without instructions,” Abu Zubaydah “slowly walked on his own to the water table and sat down.” When the interrogator “snapped his fingers twice,” Abu Zubaydah would lie flat on the waterboard. ”
—
This is preceded and followed by records of ghastly and gratuitous torture, while the High Priestess of torture herself, Alfreda Frances Bikowsky, burbles in the background.
sidd
… Wars (and nations, if not the globe) being run by a criminal class…
Abu Zubaydah joined the mujahideen in 1991 during the Afghan civil war. After being severely wounded, Zubaydah layed low for a year while recuperating. Once he regained his health, he attended the Khalden training camp under the leadership of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi; the camp was originally set up by the CIA to recruit and train foreign fighters for the Afghan-Soviet war. Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi was captured by American forces in Afghanistan in 2001 and subsequently tortured. The information derived from al-Libi was then used by the Bush administration to advance the specious claim that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
Wikipedia reports that Abu Zubaydah was rendered to Various CIA black cites and tortured over a period of 4 1/2 years. The purported information garnered from Zubaydah by means of “enhanced interrogation techniques” was used to herald their efficacy by the Bush administration as they reportedly prevented an al Qaeda plot to explode a dirty bomb on US soil. This claim was subsequently publicly. revealed as false in a 2009 Congressional hearing. However, information derived from Zubaydah by conventional means is still credited with thwarting that dirt-bomb plot:
The record of Zubaydah’s torture was illegally destroyed by the CIA.
This story makes me sick….but what makes me more mad are all the people who defend torture using their nationalist faulty logic. We can’t be the moral pinnacle we claim to be when people are put in coffin-sized boxes for 11 days and waterboarded 83 times. It doesn’t matter what Zubayadah did…this is torture and is wrong.
I don’t think we will ever know the truth of Abu Zubaydah’s story. Was this man already mentally ill, or did the CIA destroy his mind.
Why did Bush-Cheney and the CIA Destroy the Minds of 9/11 Detainees? Others Disappeared or Dead.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389×5690068
It is indeed unfortunate that this fellow went through so much of suffering. One question that I haven’t found the answer to as yet is what this young, healthy Palestinian fellow was doing in Pakistan in the middle of a war? Most Pakis either come to USA or go to UK or Saudi Arabia, so why this reverse migration? This in itself is suspicious, though I admit it is a very poor reason to torture anybody so violently.
In this and many other instances, the Paki folks caught from their streets innocent, healthy foreign moderates, branded them terrorists, handed them to us, and finally collected their bounty. These fraudulent bounties would account for a large proportion of the trillions of dollars that our present-day military folks cannot account for. In our time we would court martial such crooks.
Our only mistake was to believe the Pakis and then proceed to mercilessly torture a lot of innocent folks. The real blame should go to those crooked jihadis masquerading as moderates and fraudulently collecting bounty from us.
Going forward, the litmus test that we should use to identify any radical Islamic terrorist is by tying a fake explosive belt around his waist and asking him to detonate it. If he shouts the usual alahuakbars then we can proceed to apply the rest of the treatment; otherwise, we can let him go with an ankle monitor and a warning. Of course, we must collect back the bounty and possibly apply the rest of the tests on the Paki who caught him.
the word ‘unfortunate’ is usually used when something happens by accident. Not when it is the results of trillions of dollars investment and the results of strategic planning with the best tools known to human kind at their disposal.
Capturing this fellow and torturing him was ‘The Only Mistake’? Really? That was the only mistake? If it was a mistake, why wasn’t he released a day or two later? Give them a week, a month! But 14 years in torturous captivity is surely not a mistake. It is deliberate. It is planned. Designed to humiliate anyone they don’t like.
Getting your mental garbage in order before posting such crap is highly recommended.
You wrote: “Capturing this fellow and torturing him was ‘The Only Mistake’?”
I had written: “Our only mistake was to believe the Pakis and then proceed to mercilessly torture … “
When you accuse someone please do so correctly. Otherwise you tend to be guilty of the same misdemeanor that you superciliously accuse others of.
It is on record that at no time did we capture anyone in Pakistan. They are a free country, supposedly, and we respect their freedom. Sometimes, on their repeated and fervent requests, we have to drone out a few threats to their freedom; generally speaking, they are quite free, so there is no question of us “capturing” anyone in Pakistan. The Pakis do the job to collect rewards. Which is why we did not capture anyone in Abbottabad though we could have easily done it. Ask Khizr Khan and he will confirm what a great country we are compared to the one he ran away from.
I hope the ‘Pakis’ find you one day and make you cry like the coward you truely are! General waste of space is a more appropriate name for you!
American torturers need to prosecuted. Otherwise we’re affirming it is indeed permissable, no matter what. The stain was not removed by a report, nor by “stopping” it or outsourcing it. The perpetrators must be prosecuted.
I dont know how, they get away with it.
The circumstances of his arrest, torture and detention are all utterly illegal. The review boards are a mockery of legal process. He should be released immediately and compensated — they all should. This is no way to fight terrorism — only to provoke it and convince terrorists that they are justified.
Torture is something that happens to American Citizens in American Prisons everyday.
I don’t see any call to shut these prisons down.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=datvPqLiqnQ
They’re not mutually exclusive concerns. And the question about torture at Guantanamo isn’t entirely separate from whether it should be shut down, but really, two separate issues are being addressed.
Those who committed torture should be prosecuted. That’s the legal, ethical response to that particular issue. Guantanamo needs to be shut down because it’s a legal black hole where people can be held indefinitely without benefit of trial.
In such an environment, torture becomes more likely.
But yes, I agree, the prison system needs a serious overhaul. It isn’t the topic currently discussed, so it’s a bit of a detail to discuss it here.
Sorry for going geek, but Abu Zubaydah and his MIA eye always reminds me of what happened to the character Saul Tigh in Battlestar Galactica when he’s imprisoned by the Cylons, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Zubaydah’s incarceration inspired that story-line. Indeed Battlestar Galactica brilliantly deals with many of the moral issues arising from the War on Terror.
True, but what a difference a few years make. I remember watching BSG last year for the first time and thinking how it couldn’t possibly have made it to air in today’s world. Not because of it’s dealing with torture specifically but more the part about suicide bombings being the measure of last resort for the oppressed people.
Pat Toomey is currently running his ads for re-election based on his awesome record of opposing the closure of the Guantanamo prison. This is in a “blueish” state (Pennsylvania), not even the worst of them! What kind of people say hey, who cares if my scrawny wages get taxed at 13% instead of 10% so billionaires can be free of any taxes on their parents’ capital gains when they inherit? Just keep a couple of random Arabs at Guantanamo for a few million a year each!
I just don’t get it. If people had dragged Hirohito and Tojo out of Japan and blinded them and leashed them to a cart full of manure and had people take turns whipping them on around the city while soldiers peed on them at each intersection, well, that you could have understood, because the Japanese were bastards. Yet somehow a more honorable generation avoided all that. But how the hell do these schmuck nobodies caught defending their local tyrants in Iraq and Afghanistan rate atrocity, and why doesn’t any honor intervene now?
Why the General Hercules act? If Japan had done the damage to a major American city that was done on 9/11, then the two available nukes would have been used differently and every major city in Japan would have been completely destroyed by whatever available means.
What, Pearl Harbor wasn’t as bad as September 11th?
I’m gonna pick a nit, here. “Torgure”?
[bangs head]
Feel free to delete that nit-pickin’ comment, now that the editor’s awakened.
In the blurb under the headline on the home page it has “Gimto” instead of Gitmo.
Thank you!